Bridge and maples at Yokokura Temple.

Despite soggy skies, I headed out with a group of friends on Sunday to look at the momiji (maples) in rural Tanigumi, where a fellow JET lives. We first spent an hour at a blood drive festival in the center of town, waiting for one last person to show up. When he finally did and we were getting ready to leave, the old folks suddenly cranked up the tunes, broke out some wheelchairs and asked us to dance with them. As in, us (the young ones) sitting in the wheelchairs and them (the obaachans) wheeling us around. Or waltzing us around, as it were. We accepted, of course. It was bizarre and lovely.

"I am more than twice your age, but I want to wheel you around. どうぞ!"

Then we were off to Kegon-ji, a big temple in the hills, famous for being the last stop on the 33-temple Saigoku pilgrimage. It was beautiful in the rain, all green moss and damp stone, the perfect backdrop for the red and yellow maples. For 200 yen, you can venture down a dark staircase, under the main hall, and grope around a narrow, pitch-black corridor in search of a smooth rock. If you find the rock, you have touched Buddha's heart. Or reached enlightenment. Or something. I found the rock, but then I got turned around and ended up exiting through the entrance and blocking the passage of several nervous and blinded Japanese people, so I can't say how enlightened I actually am.

Near the main hall was a building covered with strings of one thousand origami paper cranes, which are supposed to help those who are sick. There were also hundreds of baby bibs, apparently because it is the place to pray if you are trying to get pregnant and the bibs are a sort of thank-you card to the gods.

Many thousands of cranes.

Then we left for Yokokura-dera and its annual Momoji Matsuri. We arrived near the end of the festival, but just in time to score some free miso vegetable stew and watch the throwing of the mochi. I've seen matsuri-mochi-throwing before, but this was different. Mainly because of the loud speed metal they were playing as everyone was scrabbling around. It was like a Motörhead concert circa 1981. With maples.

The mochi pit.

But things calmed down after that and I was able to walk around the temple grounds and visit the hall that holds a real Japanese mummy! He was a monk who fasted to death on Mt. Fuji and they keep him, sitting in lotus position, in a raised gold box.

Finally, toes soggy, pockets bulging with mochi, we returned home. I promptly made a delicious miso soup with my mochi and ate it in front of the kerosene heater, the perfect end to an autumn-end day.

(All the pictures I took on Sunday can be seen here.)